Techmeme: Moto X Skip NFC smartphone key official, ships free with Moto Maker orders (Zach Honig/Engadget)

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August 17, 2013, 5:30 AM

Top News

David Talbot / MIT Technology Review:

Remotely Assembled Malware Blows Past Apple's Screening Process — Research unmasks a weakness of Apple's App Store: new apps apparently are run for only a few seconds before approval. — WHY IT MATTERS — More than 600 million devices with Apple's iOS have been sold.

More: Softpedia News, iMore, MacRumors, The Next Web, AppleInsider, CNET, The Mac Observer, BGR and The Mac Security Blog

Tweets: @packetknife and @david_a_talbot

Matt McGee / Marketing Land:

EdgeRank Is Dead: Facebook's News Feed Algorithm Now Has Close To 100K Weight Factors — The next time you tell a client how Facebook selects and ranks the content that shows up in the News Feed, you'll need to do it without using the word EdgeRank. — EdgeRank, Facebook's original News Feed ranking system, is dead.

More: GigaOM and Softpedia News

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Inside the bitter YouTube battle between Microsoft and Google — Why do these companies love to hate each other? — The gloves are off: Microsoft and Google find themselves battling in more product areas than ever while fighting a very public war of words.

More: Firedoglake, Quartz, Computerworld and TechNet Blogs

Andrew Allemann / Domain Name Wire:

ICANN officially kills Google's plan for dotless Search top level domain name — Board resolution quashes dotless domains again, at least for now. — ICANN's New gTLD Program Committee has passed a resolution confirming a prohibition on so-called dotless domain names …

More: ICANN, Engadget, CNET, The Verge, ZDNet, Web Host Industry Review, Marketing Land, DomainIncite, TheDomains.com and CircleID

Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:

Carl Icahn Denied in Bid to Upend Dell Buyout Vote — Carl Icahn, the activist investor, can't seem to get a break from the Delaware Chancery Court. — A judge in that court turned away Icahn's petition asking it to intervene and stop a buyout vote scheduled for Sept. 12.

More: Wall Street Journal, DealBook, Bloomberg, Electronista, Reuters, eWeek, Associated Press, ZDNet, ValueWalk, MoneyBeat and GigaOM. Tweets: @allthingsd

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Yahoo Names Maynard Webb Permanent Board Chairman — “Maynard Webb's leadership and guidance have been an invaluable part of our board since he joined it in 2012,” a Yahoo spokesperson said in a statement. “We are honored that Maynard will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board.”

More: Reuters and Bloomberg

Greg Bensinger / Digits:

China's Alibaba Invests In ShopRunner, Amazon.com Rival — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. recently agreed to what could be a major investment in website ShopRunner Inc., a U.S.-based competitor to Amazon.com Inc. in offering two-day shipping, according to people familiar with the deal.

More: Reuters and The Next Web

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Taxi E-Hail Startup Flywheel Launches In Los Angeles To Take On Uber, Lyft, And SideCar — Mobile taxi-hailing app Flywheel is growing fast, doubling its number of rides over just the last two-and-a-half months. And with new funding in place, it's looking to enter new markets to provide …

More: Los Angeles Times

Mark Hosenball / Reuters:

Snowden downloaded NSA secrets while working for Dell, sources say — (Reuters) - Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden began downloading documents describing the U.S. government's electronic spying programs while he was working for Dell Inc in April 2012, almost a year earlier …

More: Gizmodo, The Verge, Daily Dot, Ars Technica, ZDNet, Hillicon Valley, Washington Post and SiliconBeat. Tweets: @charlie_simpson

Jim Finkle / Reuters:

Virus targets the social network in new fraud twist — (Reuters) - In the world of cyber fraud, a fake fan on Instagram can be worth five times more than a stolen credit card number. — As social media has become increasingly influential in shaping reputations, hackers have used …

Tweets: @josephmenn

Zach Honig / Engadget:

Moto X Skip NFC smartphone key official, ships free with Moto Maker orders — Skip for Moto X surfaced on Motorola's site briefly yesterday, giving us some insight into the company's new PIN-free unlocking tool before the $20 product was pulled. Today, though, Google's smartphone arm …

More: The Official Motorola Blog, GigaOM, VentureBeat, ABC News, TechnoBuffalo, AndroidGuys, pocketnow.com, POPSUGAR, GigaOM, ZDNet, Gizmodo, Android and Me and Android Community

David Pierce / The Verge:

Build-a-Phone Workshop: my first encounter with Moto Maker and a customized Moto X

More: AT&T, The Verge, Electronista, Gotta Be Mobile, Macgasm, 9to5Google, The Next Web, TechHive, AnandTech, CNET, Yahoo! News, Engadget, SlashGear, VentureBeat, LAPTOP Magazine, ReadWrite, Gizmodo, GigaOM and Engadget. Tweets: @tomwarren

Hugo Miller / Bloomberg:

BlackBerry CEO to Make $55.6 Million If He Sells Company — BlackBerry Ltd. (BB) Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins stands to make $55.6 million if he sells the company and is ousted. — That's the amount he's entitled to receive if BlackBerry has a change of control and Heins is pushed …

More: Business Insider, BGR, Tech Trader Daily, CrackBerry.com, AllThingsD, MobileSyrup.com and ValueWalk. Thanks:@sarahfrier

Jungah Lee / Bloomberg:

Samsung Said to Introduce Wristwatch-Like Smartphone Next Month — Samsung will introduce a wristwatch-like device named the Galaxy Gear next month that can make phone calls, surf the Web and handle e-mails, according to two people familiar with the matter.

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